The shootings at the Charlie Hebdo headquarters in Paris last January drew comparisons to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and now the French government appears to be responding in a similar manner to its American counterpart by doubling down on surveillance.

Palestinian women and Christians and male secularists are at special risk in the Yarmouk refugee camp now that Islamic State has taken it over. But had they been living normally in their homes in what is now Israel, with their own state, they would not have been left vulnerable to this fate.

As gung-ho “experts” press President Obama to do this, that or the other in the Middle East, keep a simple rule in mind: Whatever the avid interventionists suggest probably won’t work—and surely will have unintended consequences.

President Obama’s impossibly complicated plan for dealing with the Islamic State group involves a de facto alliance with Iran in Iraq and training up a “third force,” essentially creating a new, “moderate” Free Syrian Army to attack al-Qaida and ISIL.

The U.N. has warned of “total chaos” in Libya; the U.S.-backed regime in Egypt continues a crackdown on political opponents; and Iraq is coming off its deadliest month in years—all while the rise of the Islamic State continues there and in Syria. “Democracy Now!” surveys the wreckage in these places and others with Vijay Prashad.

Cries of solidarity such as “Je Suis Charlie” don’t seem to apply when the U.S. kills civilians in Syria; an Oklahoma state senator wants to ban hoodies in public; meanwhile, for the first time in recent Egyptian history, two dozen men were acquitted of “charges of homosexuality.” These discoveries and more after the jump.

Without Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq, it is not at all clear that Sharif Kouachi, one of the gunmen the French police are searching for, would have gotten involved in fundamentalist vigilanteism. And if he hadn’t, he would not have gone on to be a point man in murdering the staff of Charlie Hebdo along with 2 policemen.

It’s a surprise to see President Obama actually fire someone. But I have to worry that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s forced departure may signal further expansion of U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Syria.

Islamic State has not had a good month, suffering substantial setbacks in Iraq and watching with concern as the Damascus regime of Bashar al-Assad looks set to retake the major northern city of Aleppo.

There is almost no way to overemphasize how thoroughly the U.S. military now covers the Greater Middle East. After 35 years of base-building there, it’s long past time to look carefully at how this garrisoning affects the region, the U.S., and the world.

What follows is a transcript of a therapy session between the American Empire and a psychiatrist whose name we at TomDispatch have agreed not to disclose. Normally we wouldn’t consider publishing such a private encounter, but the probative news value of the exchange is so obvious that we decided to make an exception.

Rumors are swirling that Islamic State leader Ibrahim al-Samarra’i (who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) was severely wounded and that some of his chief lieutenants were killed by a U.S. airstrike on a meeting of IS leaders Friday.

President Obama said Wednesday that he would seek congressional authorization for his war on the Islamic State after months of maintaining that the authorization of 2001 was still sufficient to underpin this effort. Why the about-face?